We started the lesson by looking at the script:
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
The Play
Act One
Two ELIZABETHANS passing time in a place without any visible character.
They are well-dressed - hats, cloaks, sticks and all.
Each of them has a large leather money bag.
Guildenstern's bag is nearly empty.
Rosencrantz's bag is nearly full.
The reason being: they are betting on the toss of a coin, in the
following manner: Guildenstern (hereafter 'GUIL') takes a coin out of his
bag, spins it, letting it fall. Rosencrantz (hereafter 'ROS') studies it,
announces it as "heads" (as it happens) and puts it into his own bag. Then
they repeat the process. They have apparently been doing it for some time.
The run of "heads" is impossible, yet ROS betrays no surprise at all -
he feels none. However he is nice enough to feel a little embarrassed at
taking so much money off his friend. Let that be his character note.
GUIL is well alive to the oddity of it. He is not worried about the
money, but he is worried by the implications ; aware but not going to panic
about it - his character note.
GUIL sits. ROS stands (he does the moving, retrieving coins).
GUIL spins. ROS studies coin.
ROS: Heads.
(He picks it up and puts it in his money bag. The process is repeated.)
Heads.
(Again.)
ROS: Heads.
(Again.)
Heads.
(Again.)
Heads.
GUIL (flipping a coin): There is an art to the building up of suspense.
ROS: Heads.
GUIL (flipping another): Though it can be done by luck alone.
ROS: Heads.
GUIL: If that's the word I'm after.
ROS (raises his head at GUIL): Seventy-six love.
(GUIL gets up but has nowhere to go. He spins another coin over his
shoulder without looking at it, his attention being directed at his
environment or lack of it.)
Heads.
GUIL: A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in
nothing else at least in the law of probability.
(He slips a coin over his shoulder as he goes to look upstage.)
ROS: Heads.
(GUIL, examining the confines of the stage, flips over two more coins,
as he does so, one by one of course. ROS announces each of them as "heads".)
GUIL (musing): The law of probability, as it has been oddly asserted,
is something to do with the proposition that if six monkeys (he has
surprised himself)... if six monkeys were...
ROS: Game?
GUIL: Were they?
ROS: Are you?
GUIL (understanding): Games. (Flips a coin.) The law of averages, if I
have got this right, means that if six monkeys were thrown up in the air for
long enough they would land on their tails about as often as they would land
on their -
ROS: Heads. (He picks up the coin.)
GUIL: Which at first glance does not strike one as a particularly
rewarding speculation, in either sense, even without the monkeys. I mean you
wouldn't bet on it. I mean I would, but you wouldn't... (As he flips a
coin.)
ROS: Heads.
GUIL: Would you? (Flips a coin.)
ROS: Heads.
(Repeat.)
Heads. (He looks up at GUIL - embarrassed laugh.) Getting a bit of a
bore, isn't it?
GUIL (coldly): A bore?
ROS: Well...
GUIL: What about suspense?
ROS (innocently): What suspense?
(Small pause.)
GUIL: It must be the law of diminishing returns... I feel the spell
about to be broken. (Energising himself somewhat.)
(He takes out a coin, spins it high, catches it, turns it over on to
the back of his other hand, studies the coin - and tosses it to ROS. His
energy deflates and he sits.)
Well, it was a even chance... if my calculations are correct.
ROS: Eighty-five in a row - beaten the record!
GUIL: Don't be absurd.
ROS: Easily!
GUIL (angry): Is the it, then? Is that all?
ROS: What?
GUIL: A new record? Is that as far as you prepared to go?
ROS: Well...
GUIL: No questions? Not even a pause?
ROS: You spun it yourself.
GUIL: Not a flicker of doubt?
ROS (aggrieved, aggressive): Well, I won - didn't I?
GUIL (approaches him - quieter): And if you'd lost? If they'd come down
against you, eighty -five times, one after another, just like that?
ROS (dumbly): Eighty-five in a row? Tails?
GUIL: Yes! What would you think?
ROS (doubtfully): Well... (Jocularly.) Well, I'd have a good look at
your coins for a start!
GUIL (retiring): I'm relieved. At least we can still count on
self-interest as a predictable factor... I suppose it's the last to go. Your
capacity for trust made me wonder if perhaps... you, alone...
(He turns on him suddenly, reaches out a hand.) Touch.
(ROS claps his hand. GUIL pulls him up to him.)
(More intensely): We have been spinning coins together since - (He
releases him almost as violently.) This is not the first time we spun coins!
ROS: Oh no - we've been spinning coins for as long as I remember.
GUIL: How long is that?
ROS: I forget. Mind you - eighty-five times!
GUIL: Yes?
ROS: It'll take some time beating, I imagine.
GUIL: Is that what you imagine? Is that it? No fear?
ROS: Fear?
GUIL (in fury - flings a coin on the ground): Fear! The crack that
might flood your brain with light!
ROS: Heads... (He puts it in his bag.)
(GUIL sits despondently. He takes a coin, spins it, lets it fall
between his feet. He looks at it, picks it up; throws it to ROS, who puts it
in his bag.)
(GUIL takes another coin, spins it, catches it, turns it over on to his
other hand, looks at it, and throws it to ROS who puts it in his bag.)
(GUIL tales a third coin, spins it, catches it in his right hand, turns
it over on to his loft wrist, lobs it in the air, catches it with his left
hand, raises his left leg, throws the coin up under it, catches it and turns
it over on to the top of his head, where it sits. ROS comes, looks at it,
puts it in his bag.)
ROS: I'm afraid -
GUIL: So am I.
ROS: I'm afraid it isn't your day.
GUIL: I'm afraid it is.
(Small pause.)
ROS: Eighty-nine.
GUIL: It must be indicative of something, besides the redistribution of
wealth. (He muses.) List of possible explanations. One: I'm willing it.
Inside where nothing shows, I'm the essence of a man spinning double-headed
coins, and betting against himself in private atonement for an unremembered
past. (He spins a coin at ROS.)
ROS: Heads.
GUIL: Two: time has stopped dead, and a single experience of one coin
being spun once has been repeated ninety times... (He flips a coin, looks at
it, tosses it to ROS.) On the whole, doubtful. Three: divine intervention,
that is to say, a good turn from above concerning him, cf. children of
Israel, or retribution from above concerning me, cf. Lot's wife. Four: a
spectacular vindication of the principle that each individual coin spun
individually (he spins one) is as likely to come down heads as tails and
therefore should cause no surprise that each individual time it does. (It
does. He tosses it to ROS.)
ROS: I've never known anything like it!
GUIL: And syllogism: One, he has never known anything like it. Two: he
has never known anything to write home about. Three, it's nothing to write
home about... Home... What's the first thing you remember?
ROS: Oh, let's see...The first thing that comes into my head, you mean?
GUIL: No - the first thing you remember.
ROS: Ah. (Pause.) No, it's no good, it's gone. It was a long time ago.
GUIL (patient but edged): You don't get my meaning. What is the first
thing after all the things you've forgotten?
ROS: Oh. I see. (Pause.) I've forgotten the question.
GUIL: How long have you suffered from a bad memory?
ROS: I can't remember.
(GUIL paces.)
GUIL: Are you happy?
ROS: What?
GUIL: Content? At ease?
ROS: I suppose so.
GUIL: What are you going to do now?
ROS: I don't know. What do you want to do?
GUIL: I have no desires. None. (He stops pacing dead.) There was a
messenger... that's right. We were sent for. (He wheels at ROS and raps
out.) Syllogism the second: one: probability is a factor which operates
within natural forces. Two, probability is not operating as a factor. Three,
we are now within un-, sub- or supernatural forces. Discuss. (ROS is
suitably startled - Acidly.) Not too heatedly.
ROS: I'm sorry, I - What's the matter with you?
GUIL: A scientific approach to the examination of phenomena is a
defence against the pure emotion of fear.
This is the extract of the script we were given, it is the very beginning of the play. We had a discussion about context of the play and how they are characters from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. The fact they now have a play about them is a comical part by itself as the characters are a minority part that in the end die. The play follows what they do in the time that they are in the background, watching them question the purpose of their existence.
We took this idea of waiting and had to use the voids in the school building that are split between three layers, given a batch of coins that we were then able to use in the script to pass of the idea of coin flipping and passing the time.
Working with Richard, we developed the characters, and used the voids and the idea of movement to reflect this, and in this, he would move between the voids with more pace and as he is the was the character that did not win the coin toss it emphasised his lack of luck. For myself, I used the voids in order to show my power, as I won after the first load of coin tossing, I moved onto the same level in order to show I was winning.
I liked this expect of using the site in order to create links into the performance. It allowed us to make the space appear as something more, what we would need to consider is the audiences point of view and how we have to adapt our performance in order for them to see it.
No comments:
Post a Comment